


The Rule of Parallel Lines

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because I Love Benny, Benny Lafitte & Dean Winchester Friendship, Heavy Angst, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Sam is the Voice of Reason, Season/Series 11 Spoilers, Self-Reflection, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7006843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In geometry, it’s called the rule of parallel lines. </p><p>It states that two lines are coplanar, meaning in the same plane. So long as those lines remain on the same plane, they will never intersect. They might as well be two cars speeding down the same lane on the highway: They live the same weary, dreary, monotonous, whatever-you-want-to-call-it life, but always separately. Always separate—never together. </p><p>And if that ain’t the story to the best-selling tragedy of the year, take it from the author, Dean Winchester.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rule of Parallel Lines

 

In geometry, it’s called the rule of parallel lines.

It states that two lines are coplanar, meaning in the same plane. So long as those lines remain on the same plane, they will never intersect. They might as well be two cars speeding down the same lane on the highway: They live the same weary, dreary, monotonous, _whatever-_ you-want-to-call-it life, but always separately. Always separate—never together.

And if that ain’t the story to the best-selling tragedy of the year, take it from the author, Dean Winchester.

The preface is set September 13, 2005. Dean isn’t sure what to expect when his deadbeat dad goes missing, but he shags ass to Palo Alto before he can properly mull his options over. Sam’s distaste—no, not distaste, _disgust_ towards their father is irreversible, understandably so.

It’s a desperate attempt at a normal life, but Sam hangs up the hunter pride flag in favor of his new girlfriend, Jess. She’s beautiful—the kind of beautiful that’ll make you think twice before leaving her for your estranged and slightly deranged brother.

But Dean, in his self-agnostic, sociopathic state, he all but gets down on his knees and _begs._ He doesn’t just need Sam for some blue collar hunt: He needs him for _every_ hunt. He needs _Sam._

And God, that terrifies him.

The Winchesters, they’ve never been parallels, which is why they just might make the perfect team.

That works for a while. Then they become close in more than a physical sense. They start to _understand_ each other. He jokes now what a married couple they are, but Dean’s been the one in a three-piece suit standing in front of the priest to renew his vows, swearing to love and protect his brother. Not because he needs him, though that’s factored in enough, but because he has to believe Sam can speak now, rather than forever holding his peace.

Dean has to believe, despite every fiber working against him, that one day, their lines can intersect again—that Sam can have a normal life without Dean there to drag him down.

But Sam makes his decision when he tosses the shotgun in the trunk of Dean’s ’67 Chevy Impala in 2005.

He’s sticking around.

Then there’s Benny. Dean’s not sure of the date because he’s currently lunch meat for every Dick, Dick, and Dick Leviathan. Dean knows _exactly_ what to expect when a bloodsucker saves his life. Benny wants something. More importantly, he wants something from _Dean_. But Dean, he needs the extra eye if he’s going to pop Purgatory like a fresh pimple, so he signs his name on the dotted line.

Besides, they’re both deranged, so even if they hate each other, it works. There’s an equilibrium.

But then something really weird happens. Not the Winchesters’ run-of-the-hunt kind of weird, but with his moral at an all-time low—and his _morale_ at an all-time high, thanks to some of the sucky (no pun intended) immortal fighters down under—but Benny becomes a confidante, a protector… and, much to Sam’s spite, a brother. Benny starts saving Dean because he needs him, rather than needing him for a bigger picture. Dean does the same.

Then Dean gets topside with Benny, who decides to give up hunting his kind for the sake of his family. Dean does just the opposite, but with the same endgame.

Their lines, they start to untangle. Dean can finally _breathe._

Then Dean has to kill Benny to save Sam, his _real_ brother.

Benny tells him he isn’t any good up here anyway.

Dean spends the whole night thinking maybe, just _maybe,_ if he’d been born a hundred years ago, and their paths—their _lines,_ had they crossed, Benny would’ve been more stable. Benny would’ve been _human_ , maybe thanks to Dean, who knows. Maybe Dean wouldn’t even be a hunter. Maybe they could’ve both lived normal, apple pie lives fighting smaller scale demons, like alcoholism or erectile dysfunction.

But then, he thinks, Benny would’ve been a totally different person. So would Dean.

Dean drowns the last of that thought with a fifth of whiskey. The alcohol may not be able to hit it in the brain, where it counts, but it burns his windpipe, keeping him from voicing his thoughts. And that’s the end of that train of thought.

Well, until Castiel, that is.

September 18, 2008: Pontiac, Illinois.  It’s not as easy to forget the date of this chapter.

It’s not like Castiel is a brother to Dean. Well, he _is,_ or at least that’s what Dean _tells_ him, but it’s only to protect him—to keep their lines parallel.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Just like Benny, Dean’s not sure what to expect when a Creature from the Black Lagoon—scratch that, Creature from the _Light_ Lagoon—walks towards him in an abandoned farmhouse. He wards the place off, fires off a whole cartridge of salt like it’s the fourth of friggin’ July—hell, he _stabs_ the dude with Ruby’s Knife, but he doesn’t move.

Well, except when he grips the dagger and slides it out of his chest.

Now he has Dean’s attention.

Turns out the guy’s not a _guy,_ not really: He’s an angel. Not the fluffy-winged, regular cable programming John Dye kind of angel, but a full-fledged bad-to-the-bone angel. Dean, despite his lack of faith in pretty much everyone and everything, uses Castiel to his advantage. He calls him, talks to him, hell; he even starts _praying_ about things as arbitrary as hunts. Not before long, Castiel starts changing too. Soon, he’s balancing the books between Heaven and Dean, and Dean’s coming to rely on him as more than an inside source.

Their intentions, they become the same. Their lines start to untangle.

He pens him Cas, and he becomes family.

As family, as _brothers,_ they fight alongside each other. They fight Dick, demons, angels, the apocalypse, and pretty much anything else from God’s original makes and models. Cas loses himself a few times along the way, gets too cocky, too arrogant—becomes _human_. So when his wings _actually_ get clipped, when he’s dropped on his holy heinie into the real world, he’s the most humble person Dean’s ever known.

And even when he gets his wings back, he’s still human where it counts, and Dean actually feels like he did something _right._ With Cas, it’s like this sourpuss kitten shows up his door with big, beady blue eyes, and Dean, against his better judgment, starts to feed him, enabling Cas to keep coming into his home. Cas learns how to love and appreciate someone’s charity, and Dean…

Well, Dean falls in love with the little guy.

And God, that terrifies him.

So Dean does the only thing he’s known how to do since Stanford: He sets boundaries. His heart’s a bleeding, gaping wound that’ll never be stitched nowadays, so he spills his feelings to Cas pretty much every other day, but never his feelings _for_ the man—not his true feelings. Dean wishes it’s because of something as simple as psychosomatic homophobia. Maybe when he was a lean, mean hunting machine nearly twelve years ago, that would’ve been the case. He wishes he could have the luxury of being an apple-pie asshole.

No, these _Lightening in a Bottle_ feelings, they’re due to Dean’s fear of losing Cas. Either something or someone will stab the knife into Cas’s back, or Dean will. That’s just the way of his life.

Thus making their lines straighter than a churchgoer on Sunday.

“Dean, I can hear you thinking from here. It’s kind of annoying.”

Dean snaps his head across the long line of the library table. “Go nerd out somewhere else then.”

“No,” says Sam, closing whatever encyclopedia he’s reading this time to face Dean with a pointed look.

“No?”

“No.”

Dean almost forgets how to roll his eyes— _almost._ “Care to elaborate?”

“Do you?”

Dean’s jaw clenches, a clear warning sign to anyone within a five mile radius to keep away. But Sam doesn’t take it. Sam’s not afraid of his brother—never has been. Sam knows Dean better than his old friend Webster, and asserts this fact by moving from his table to Dean’s. “Just thinking about life.”

“Well, that’s specific,” snorts Sam.

“You caught me, it’s about midget strippers.”

“ _Dean_.”

Yeah, no, Dean _definitely_ remembers how to roll his eyes. “I mean our lives,” he says, looking down at his tightly cropped fingernails. “You know, how much we’ve lost, it’s just…”

“What?” When Dean doesn’t reply, Sam continues: "I know it's hard to see, but it hasn't been all bad. We've been to some cool places, hunted zombies, _actual zombies_ , met some cool people along the way—"

"People who are dead—or _worse_ —because of me…"

"People who loved you more than anything," Sam stresses. "Some people don't get to have that ever. We have each other, _Cas_ —"

There's that name again. It stings worse than alcohol. Dean knows: He’s tried everything in their liquor cabinet to rid himself of it. "What're you saying, huh?" he tests. "That we're friggin' blessed?"

"Notwithstanding the fact that we met the Lord himself?" Sam laughs. "Yeah, I think we're pretty blessed." Dean produces a non-committal grunt, but cracks a small smile, murmuring, “ _Our lives are weird.”_ Sam returns it with maximum effort before asking, "What's really going on, Dean?"

"I love him, Sam,” Dean sighs, surprising himself how easy it comes out. “God, I love him so friggin' much it hurts. But he's—I'm. . . I just want him to be happy."

Sam peers up at Dean through slit hazel eyes. "Why can't he be that with you?"

"That's not how it works, Sammy. You know that. Not in this family."

"He _is_ our family, Dean, don't you get that?" Sam scoffs. "I thought you of all people would. And in this family, we're happier together than we are apart."

"Are we?"

"Dean, can you just pull your head out of your ass long enough to listen to good advice when it's given? I know you, man, better than anyone. I know you aren't happy, not really. And I know he isn't either. Not unless you go upstairs and tell that friggin' angel of the Lord you love him!"

Dean pushes out of his chair. He scrubs a hand over his face staring blankly at the wall ahead. He can feel the intensity of Sam’s gaze weighing him down like a cartoon anvil, but right now, he has to focus on his breathing. He can’t trip over his words.

Not when he’s about to profess his love to Castiel friggin’ Winchester.

Dean’s feet can’t contend with his heart, but they carry him up the stairs eventually.

He stops when he approaches Cas’s door. He’s going to do this. After too many restless nights and hungover mornings, he’s _finally_ going to do something for himself that might not backfire. And that feeling in his chest, his fingers, his toes, that tingling adrenaline coursing through his body like a power plant—that’s something worth holding onto. That’s the way he wants to make Cas feel _every day_ through a simple touch or…

Or a…

A swishing noise cuts through his thoughts as Cas stands there, staring at Dean. He could swear those are tears sitting on the sill of his dark blue, lust-blown eyes, but it could just be Dean’s reflection. “You think too loud,” he grunts, and then he’s slamming Dean into the wall behind them like the night Dean got dragged into Heaven with a bribe piled high with White Castle burgers. Except instead of Castiel’s hand covering his mouth, it’s…

“Wait, Cas, no, I—” Dean stops Cas just a mere inch from his mouth. “I have to… I have to say—”

“I heard you,” says Cas, turning his face to brush his nose against Dean’s. His breath is warm, labored. His eyes lock with Dean’s lips before slowly moving up, like the glowing red buttons on an elevator. “I heard you where it counts,” he says, bringing the hand not pinning him against the wall to cradle Dean’s head.

In geometry, it’s called the rule of parallel lines.

Luckily Dean’s never been one to abide by the rules.


End file.
